Improvement in artists tablets



UNITED STATES PATENT ()FFIGE.

HENRY RUSSELL, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR OF ONE- HALE HIS RIGHT TO JOHN W. SHEPHERD, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN ARTISTS TABLETS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 213,454, dated March 18, 1879; application filed November 6, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY. RUssELL, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Artists Tablets, of which the following is a specification:

The object of my invention is to make a cheap, permanent, and otherwise efficient tablet for oil-color paintings, in place of the prepared canvas usually stretched on frames for that purpose.

In carrying out my invention I use, by preference, as a foundation for the tablet, the straw-board of commerce, because it serves the desired purpose equally as well as, if not better than, the more expensive mill-board or Manila board. The board having been cut to the desired size of the tablet, I connect to one of its faces, and preferably to both faces, by ordinary paste, or paste combined with glue, a strip of fabric, which may be either cotton or linen, and then subject the whole to pressure, and retain it under pressure until the cement is dry and the fabric is effectually united both to the front and back of the board. I then coat one of the surfaces with the pigment usually employed in preparing canvas for artists, the principal ingredients of this pigment being generally white lead and drying-oil, with a small quantity of Vandyke brown to impart the tint which artists prefer. Before the coating is dry I treat the surface with a stipplebrush, partly with the view of removing the brush-marks left in applying the pigment, and partly with the view of developing the granular surface due to the fabric to which the pigment is applied. After the pigment thus treated is dry the tablet is ready for use, and

presents the desired rough surface which artists prefer, and which is due mainly to the fabric underlying the pigment.

I have found that shade-muslin-that is, muslin prepared for use as window-shades-is an excellent fabric for use in the preparation of the tablets; but other fabrics of cotton or linen may be used.

Although straw-board of itself is liable to 4 warp, the fabric applied to it with cement and under pressure renders it rigid and permanent, especially if the fabric be secured to both sides.

The fabric may be folded over the edges of the board and cemented thereto, and for the larger tablets several boards may be pasted together to insure proper rigidity.

I do not desire to claim, broadly, in the manufacture of artists tablets, pasteboard with canvas secured to the same as afoundation for the tablet; but

I claim as my invention- The process described of manufacturing artists tablets, which consists in first pasting canvas or other suitable textile fabric to strawboard or other pasteboard, then drying the same under pressure, then painting the surface of the tablet with any desired pigment, and finally stippling the same to form a grain, all as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

HENRY RUSSELL.

Witnesses:

ALEX. PATTERSON, HARRY SMITH. 

